Alfred Hitchcock has made numerous movies that have become classics and have a distinctive style that one would see and immediately know it could have only been Hitchcock that directed that film. This unique style is known as “hitchcockian” and many various elements are necessary to make up a truly Hitchcockian film. The icey cool blonde, use of stairs as suspense, and dark shadows to symbolize cruel intentions are just a few of the numerous elements Hitchcock incorporates into his films. Rear Window is one of the many films that embodies these elements making it a true Hitchcockian film. Rear Window was released in 1954 and not only is it one of Hitchcock’s greatest movies, but a true classic as it has an excellent plot, well developed characters, …show more content…
and a creative vision. Rear Window is the perfect example of a Hitchcockian film and this is shown through the many elements of a Hitchcock movies it contains. The movie opens with lively music and credits which is often in most Hitchcock films. The music usually sets the tone of the movie and is very memorable. Hitchcock uses a lot of vertical and horizontal lines in the beginning of the movie when you see a panoramic shot of Jeffries’ apartment complex. Hitchcock usually uses vertical and horizontal lines in his movies to create interesting shots, sets, and scenes. The Camera is usually at a low angle on Jefferies and Lisa’s face to demonstrate that they have power and control. Lisa has a lot of power since she is a socialite and fashion model, while Jefferies has the most power as he watches down on his neighbours through his binoculars. The high angles symbolize the control he has spying on people without his consent. Spying on others is another, more minor, Hitchcockian element. In a few of his movies, Hitchcock has characters spying on others. In Psycho, Norman spies on Marion through a hole in the wall. In Shadow of a Doubt, Uncle Charlie spies on young Charlie through the window. The audience is then introduced to Lisa Freemont, Jefferies’ girlfriend, who is the icey cool blonde. Hitchcock loved platinum blonde women and would often cast them in his movies. This became so common, that the icey blonde became a popular Hitchcockian element. Another common Hitchcockian element that occurs in Rear Window is the ordinary, seamlessly normal, character being put in odd situations. There is nothing abnormal or strange about Jefferies’ life. He starts off the movie simply spying on his neighbours, but gets put in the odd circumstance of suspecting that one of them is a murderer. Hitchcock takes every day minor activities and turns them into something bizarre and creepy. While not everyone conciously spies on their neighbours, one may happen to be outside, see their neighbours are out, and look over to see who it is and what they may be up to. Another common Hitchcockian element is food and death being paired together. While Jefferies is eating breakfast, Stella wonders how Thorwald hid the remains of his wife. In other Hitchcock movies, food and death are associated. In Psycho, just before Marion is killed she is seen eating. In Shadow of a Doubt, death is talked about while everyone is at the dinner table. The most common Hitchcockian element is the “Macguffin”, which is the object in the movie that the characters care about but the audience does not. In Rear Window, the Macguffin is what could possibly be buried in the garden. Jefferies’ neighbours dog is constantly digging something up in the garden, Lars Thorwald eventually kills the dog to prevent it from finding what’s buried. The answer to what could be buried there is never answered, therefore it is the Macguffin in the movie. Another common Hitchcockian element is the distinction between the innocent and guilty. Thorwald is truly guilty as he killed his wife, but Jefferies is also guilty for spying on his neighbours as well as Lisa for breaking into his apartment. While they did have good intentions, Hitchcock uses this to play with his audience’s mind and blur the line between what is morally right and wrong. Hitchcock also used lighting, shadowing, camera angling and stairs to build suspense.
In the climax of the movie, Lars makes his way over to Jefferies’ apartment to see why he is giving him trouble. Hitchcock typically uses stairs to build suspense, but in Rear Window he does it differently since the entire movie is only shot out of a window. The audience can only hear Lars slowly going up the stairs to Jefferies’ apartment. This builds more suspense since he is not seen and only heard. When he opens the door, there are shadows casted on his face to show suspense and potential doom for Jefferies. For the first time in the film, there is a high angle looking down on Jefferies’ face to show that he no longer has power anymore as Thorwald is now in his room. Inefficient or imposing inspectors or police men are common Hitchcockian elements as well. Doyle, the inspector in Rear Window, is unwilling to help as he doesn’t believe Thorwald truly killed his wife. After observing all of the Hitchcockian elements found in Rear Window, one can truly see that this movie is a genuine Hitchcockian film. It contains all the elements of a true Hitchcock film such as the icey platinum blonde, the blurring differentiation between what’s morally right and wrong, and the regular person being places into awkward or bizarre situations. All of these elements and characteristics of this film prove that Rear Window is a true Hitchcockian
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This left Hitchcock films as some of her mother’s favorites. Pemberton, went to a Hitchcock festival as an adult, this time watching Rear Window, which she had not seen since she was a child with an objective examination, she found a scene that would shift both her and her mother’s perspective of this movie. As Jimmy Stewart’s character, Jefferies, realizes he is in danger, telephones his friend Wendell Corey, who was not at home, but he spoke with the baby-sitter who did not appear on screen, but was portrayed in a voice that would convey imagery of a “familiar black image.” Asking the inspiration for this essay “Do he have your number, Mr.
The film, 'Rear Window' has an essence of 'urban isolation/ loneliness' in it. The entire film is made on one confined set. In the whole movie, the viewers can either see the apartment of the immobile protagonist, Jeff or the window views of his neighbors. With the idea of confined set, Hitchcock (director) showed the loneliness and urban isolation of Jeff. Due to his leg injury, Jeff can not go anywhere so he passes his time by peeping into his neighbors' life through his rear window and can see different stories going on in different apartments. Each apartment window is like a TV series for him, which he watches on a daily basis. This film shows the visual study of obsessive human curiosity.
Though complex and brilliantly written for its time, the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo, is only half of the genius behind it. Alfred Hitchcock’s unique presence as an auteur is truly what sets his films apart. There is symmetry to his shots that give the film an artistic feel, as if each frame were a painting. Many times, within this symmetry, Hitchcock places the characters in the center of the frame; or if not centered, then balanced by whatever else is adding density to the shot. For example, as Madeline sits and looks at the painting in the museum, there is a balance within the frame. To counter-act her position to the right of the painting, Hitchcock puts a chair and another painting on the left side, which is visually pleasing to the eye of the audience. The use of red and green not only adds a visual effect as well, but later serves as a clue that Madeline is not actually dead, when the women who looks like her is wearing a green dress.
Rear Window directed by Alfred Hitchcock was an exceptional movie with a jaw- dropping 8.6 rating on IMDb’s website. The movie is about L. B. Jefferies (protagonist), who is a well-known photographer in a wheelchair.The lack of entertainment and extreme boredom caused Jeff (Jefferies) to stare out the rear window day and night. He eyed his neighbors through this window 24/7 and revolved his wheelchair season around their personal lives. As the movie goes on Jeff feels as if Lars Thorwald (antagonist) has murdered his sick wife. He knew they were an unhappy married couple already and had some unmistakable clues. In this series of events Jeff’s girlfriend who he thought to be too perfect for him and epicene turns out be a risk-taker and brave.
Rear Window effectively demonstrates Hitchcock’s strong qualities as an author. The writer for Rear Window is not Hitchcock, and yet there are clearly many motifs and themes present which are well known for being used by Hitchcock. He is not merely following instructions on how to make the movie; he is providing his own creative adjustments. Now we will address a few of these from the film. First, drawing parallels between characters with a difference, usually a negative one, is a repeated concept in Hitchcock films.
...m plays a considerable role in this film. Jeffries, the films protagonist is bound to his apartment, so for entertainment he watches people through his window without them knowing. From the very beginning these characters seem to so interesting, so no wonder Jeffries decides to watch them. While watching the film, we become witnesses of their private lives, making us voyeurists too. In this film windows are not used in a traditional sense, they expose people, they symbolize confinement, and they allude to suspenseful plot devices. Hitchcock’s aesthetic configuration of the film manipulates the audience into questioning several aspects of the film and in life in general. Hitchcock’s originality in Rear Window was not only successful during the golden age of Hollywood, but it continues to be creatively adapted and consistently influential in today’s cinema as well.
He uses the point of view shot a lot in Rear Window, most of the film we are looking from the perspective of L.B. Jefferies view outside of his window. Everything he sees, the audience sees through his view. This seems to really create an honest relationship with the audience and the character. For example, when L.B. Jefferies sees Lars Thorwald putting his knives away. We see everything that L.B. Jefferies sees and essentially feel the same way that he does. When Hitchcock adds in a shot following the POV of L.B. Jefferies reaction to what he saw Lars Thorwald just do, that is Hitchcock using the Kuleshov effect. Used in almost every Hitchcock film, the audience gets a sense of reality and the reaction to that reality from the character. In Hitchcock’s The Birds for example, the Kuleshov effect is used extremely. In the scene where the man gets knocked down by the bird at the gas station and gas spills down the roadway. We see this through alternating shots of POV from Melanie Daniels view and her facial expression as the gas trail leads to man who is about to light a cigarette. We see the fear and drastic change in emotion in the close up shots showing her reaction to what she saw. In the end, the audience feels psychologically involved and connected with the
Rear Window and the works of Hopper are both required with confinement. Disregarding its blended utilize land setting, Early Sunday Morning does not pass on a warm, fluffy feeling of group. In like manner, in Rear Window, the inhabitants of the lofts are confined from each other. Apartment Houses is additionally for the most part viewed as another antecedent to Rear Window. Large portions of Hopper's night settings portray scenes from New York City and Night Windows is no special case. The lady in this work of art is totally unconscious of the stage she is on and the front line situate its eyewitness involves. Its semi-sexual story is resounded in Rear Window, and it catches strikingly the experience of living in New York: the a large number
Rowe, Lawrence. "Through the Looking Glass: Reflexivity, Reciprocality, and Defenestration in Hitchcock's"Rear Window"." College Literature 35.1 (2008): 16-37.
An inner courtyard becomes a large stage that serves the director to show a portrait of human relationships. Angles and perspectives put the audience in a place where it is not normally found. Hitchcock with his camera can get in someone's personal life and invade their privacy. With Rear Window it makes the public more aware of itself as an observer. This displaces and transforms the public into a player into the action since across his look, the observer assumes the responsibility of the characters and believes an experience different from any other film of their
Stam, Robert & Pearson, Robertson., ‘Hitchcock’s Rear Window: Refluxivity and the Critique of Voyeurism’ in Deutelbaum, Marshall & Poague, Leland A. ed., A Hitchcock Reader (John Wiley & Sons: 2009).
There are four crucial scenes of this film in which Hitchcock shows a change in perspective and identity through the mise-en-scène. Hitchcock’s signature motifs, style, and themes are conveyed through the mise-en-scène.
The film, Vertigo (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is classified as a genre combination of mystery, romance, suspense and thriller about psychological obsession and murder. Filmed on location in San Francisco and on the Paramount lot in Hollywood, California in 1957, the cultural features of the late 1950’s America were depicted in the films mise en scène by costume and set designs current for that time period. The film was produced at the end of the golden age of Hollywood when the studio system was still in place. At the time Vertigo was produced, Hollywood studios were still very much in control of film production and of actor’s contracts. Hitchcock’s groundbreaking cinematic language and camera techniques has had great impact on film and American popular culture and created a cult following of his films to this day.
As a filmmaker, whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production, Alfred Hitchcock implied a great deal in the motion pictures that he made.
In the movie Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock (1954), there were changes in the main characters’ relationship. In the earlier part, Jeff seems to not have experience with society outside of his immediate apartment or world. By the time Lisa shows up for the date, the writing, direction, and acting shows that these two characters genuinely get along. Later that time, Lisa starts joining Jeff on an adventure to solve a crime, following him in a heavy and risky situation. She proves to him that she is worthy of him once she is interested in due to what was going on outside with his neighbor. Therefore Hitchcock first presents a relationship in crisis, then turns it upside down. What